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food for a 1 year old

Hi everyone!

My daughter is 1 year and two months old now. I wonder what kind of food is best to give
to her. I have experiment a lot and I got worried because she seemed not interested in food.
Is it true that there's nothing to worry about as long as she is taking milk? I would greatly
appreciate if you could give me insights on this.

At your daughter's age she will be getting approximately 80% of her required nutrients from the breast milk (if you feed on demand) and the remaining 20% from food. So, it is still a huge proportion from the breast milk and (as long as she seems to be happy and developing as expected) you have nothing to be concerned about.

With baby led weaning (blw) you should offer your toddler a wide range of food and eat together as a family. You can offer a cup of water or expressed milk with this. Allow your daughter to take her time and feed herself. Non-processed foods are best and a typical meal may include: avocado, tomatoes, potatoes, steamed chicken, cheese etc. As long as you avoid salty food, processed food and nuts/fruit with stones anything is fine.

I'm diabetic and I was told that my baby has a higher risk of getting diabetes as well. She is now 14 months and I would like to find out are there any particular food that will help decrease her chances of getting diabetes?

The best thing you can do for your baby's health is to teach her how to choose and even prefer foods that are healthy.

One of the best ways to start this is by offering her green smoothies through a straw. Babies love green smoothies and the smoothies are full of good nutrients. You can start with just blending bananas and greens (i.e. spinach, chard, kale, lettuce, etc.) or you can add other fruits to the banana, like pineapple, orange, strawberries, cherries, blueberries, etc.

If you feed your daughter a diabetic friendly diet now, she will naturally grow up to prefer those foods. Right now she should be able to tolerate fruits, whereas you may not, but if she grows up not eating sugar (except for the occasional treat) and not eating fast food, and not eating white flour or processed foods she very likely will not get diabetes when she is older.

My husband has diabetes, and his father and mother have diabetes. This means my children likely have a higher chance of getting it if they don't watch their diet. I am teaching them now how to make wise nutrition choices in hopes that it will pay off later.

Here's a fun video you may find inspiring - shows you how to make a green smoothie and how to feed it to your baby. This mum doesn't use a straw, but your baby may be able to suck from a straw.

Hope you enjoyed this video - post back and let me know what you thought.

Unfortunately I was only able to breastfeed her until 2 months. For some reason, there just wasn't enough milk for her. This was also my problem with my first child, I was only able to breastfeed her for 1 month and then the milk stopped.